Australia is missing out on a major export industry, and a source of clean energy. Source: The Daily Advertiser
In the US and particularly in Canada, timber waste, including sawdust, harvest residues, timber that is not millable, and salvage logs from areas hit by disease or fire is turned into wood pellets to be burnt to generate electricity.
“Biomass” is a recognised “carbon neutral” fuel, and is counted as renewable energy by Germany and the European Union.
Biomass produces 22.5% of power in Germany, and biowaste a further 3.6%, so over a quarter of Germany’s “renewable” energy comes from wood.
Before going on, it is worth noting that while Germany is making headlines for its good work in reducing emissions, it is merely replacing nuclear with renewables such as wind.
Nuclear still accounts for over 20% of Germany’s power. The backbone of Germany’s electricity generation is the 44% that comes from burning coal.
Germany is Europe’s largest user of energy. It is also ranked fourth in the world by GDP. Reliable and cheap electricity is essential.
Power prices have risen 60% in five years, threatening German industry and jobs.
Wood pellets are being burnt to replace coal, producing carbon neutral power.
New research suggests that “co-firing”, using 89% coal and 11% wood could produce a 10% reduction in CO2 emissions.
Germany is expanding its coal power capacity by opening a further 26 new coal-fired power stations.
Most of the new plants will burn Germany’s abundant supplies of brown coal. These are of the modern flexible capacity type, that can slow down when the wind blows, but generate at full capacity at short notice. They can also accept wood pellets as fuel.
The Greens and Labor are simply uninformed when they say Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) will encourage burning of native forests.
Waste timber from plantation forests, including hardwood forests in southern Tasmania, will become the basis of a new clean energy industry. Forestry is big business in Tumut, Batlow and Tumbarumba.
We could soon be generating clean power, while creating more local jobs.
